1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to, e.g., a wire harness including an electric wire harness having a core wire and a covering part covering the core wire, a terminal fixture attached to the core wire, and a housing accommodating the terminal fixture, and a method for manufacturing the wire harness.
2. Description of the Related Art
An automobile as a mobile body has recently been designed to reduce its weight to improve fuel consumption by virtue of core wire of an electric wire disposed in a wire harness being composed of aluminum, which is employed for supplying electric devices such various lamps or motors to be installed with power from power source such a battery. To the core wire of the electric wire is attached a terminal fixture made of metal, copper or copper ally, which is different from the core wire.
Since the core wire made of aluminum and the terminal fixture made of copper or copper alloy attached to the terminal fixture are made of different metals, a local cell is formed, making the core wire corrode when a contact portion of the core wire and the terminal fixture is watered, thus posing a drawback of incurring electric corrosion.
Technology for resolving such the drawback has been proposed in PTL 1. A conventional wire harness 101 described in PTL 1 shown in FIG. 10 is provided with a core wire 105 made of aluminum, an electric wire 102 having a covering part 106 covering the core wire 105, and a terminal fixture 107 attached to an end of the electric wire 102 and formed by swaging tubelar pipe member made of copper or copper alloy.
The following describes how the above-mentioned conventional wire harness 101 is assembled. Firstly, as shown in FIG. 10A, a terminal 108 is formed by one end of the pipe member being flatly swaged. Secondly, after waterproof sealant 101a is filled inside the pipe member, a core wire 105 exposed out of the covering part 106 of the electric wire 102 is inserted from the other end of the pipe member, and the core wire 105 is positioned at a middle of the pipe member. Then, the middle of the pipe member and the core wire 105, as shown in FIG. 10B, are swaged together to connect with each other, forming a connection 109. The terminal fixture 107 is thus formed. Then, as shown in FIG. 10C, the waterproof sealant 101a is filled inside the terminal fixture 107 so as to fill a gap between the terminal fixture 107 and the covering part. The conventional wire harness 101 has thus been assembled.    [Patent Literature 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-339,850
However, there has been a drawback to be mentioned below in the above-mentioned conventional wire harness 101. I.e. since with the wire harness 101, after the terminal fixture 108 is formed, the middle of the pipe member and the core wire 105 has been swaged together to form the connection 109, forming the terminal fixture 107, the terminal 108 and the connection 109 have been manufactured in respective processes, resulting in prolongment of required time for manufacturing the terminal fixture 107 so as to likely reduce productivity of the wire harness 101. In addition, with the conventional wire harness 101, after the waterproof sealant 101a has been filled inside the pipe member, and the middle of the pipe member and the core wire 105 have been swaged together to form the connection 109, forming the terminal fixture 107, the waterproof sealant 101a has been required to fill inside the terminal fixture 107, it has therefore been required to employ the waterproof sealant 101a in various processes multiple times, resulting in requirement of work for waterproof processing for the wire harness 101 and prolongment of required time for manufacturing the terminal fixture 107, so as to likely reduce productivity of the wire harness 101. Furthermore, since it is not possible to confirm whether the waterproof sealant 101a has been filled between the terminal fixture 107 and the covering part 106 without any gap, it has been likely that water has infiltrated between the core wire 105 and the terminal fixture 107, resulting in watering a connection portion therebetween. This has caused a problem of not securing reliability of the wire harness 101.
Although it has been made possible not incur corrosion in the conventional wire harness 101 if the core wire 105 is made of the same copper or copper alloy as the terminal fixture 107, it has been remained likely to water the connection portion between the core wire 105 and the terminal fixture 107.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to resolve the above-mentioned drawback. Namely, it is made possible to provide a wire harness capable of improving productivity and reducing cost, as well as enhancing waterproof performance to secure reliability, and a method for manufacturing the wire harness.